Someone’s amazing old sticker album.

Well, I’ve found a similar album, which once belonged to another stranger. It’s not as jampacked as the album from last summer, but in its way, it’s just as awesome:

The Official Sticker Collector’s Album was released in 1983 by Gordy International, which certainly had a vested interest in making kids obsess over stickers. Gordy International was one of its era’s leading sticker companies, offering adhesive versions of everything from legit cartoon characters to anthropomorphized foodstuffs.

Fortunately, this album’s original owner didn’t stop at Gordy’s stickers. There’s a little bit of everything in here, hitting so many subjects and in such random order that it almost feels more like a parody of ‘80s stickers albums than a “real” one.

What’s more interesting is that the stickers aren’t only from the ‘80s. A few Power Ranger appearances suggest that this album was in use until the late ‘90s. Given that there are stickers here too old for even me to remember, this merits discussion!

My best guess is that someone a little older than me started the album, before passing it down to a much younger brother or sister many years later. I’m rather digging the idea of a messy sticker album becoming a family heirloom. This is the sticker book version of the Winslow quilt from Family Matters.

The collection has many highlights, starting with these extremely old Life Savers stickers. The Life Savers Root Beer sticker is of particular interest, because:

1) It reminds us that Life Savers really did come in “Root Beer.” Wow!

2) The sticker is all torn up, suggesting that the original owner put it in here only after deciding that it should live on the front cover of some ancient notebook. I admire the effort, but the sad state of that sticker proves that you need to choose their homes wisely.

My first thought was that the giraffe was Geoffrey’s son — a little-seen “bonus” mascot from the Toys “R” Us of old.

Actually, the truth is weirder. The character on that sticker is Geena, a co-contracted spokesgiraffe working at the behest of tooth-focused companies everywhere. Geena even had her own animated special, which after a quick browse seems to the the perfect thing to watch the next time I take enormous quantities of drugs.

Continuing this page’s faint medicinal theme, get a load of BubbleRex, an old Tylenol mascot. I wish I knew more about BubbleRex, because the idea of a pink dinosaur trying to convince kids that Tylenol tasted like candy is exactly the kind of concept that I could raise a cult around.

These were the only two Garbage Pail Kids stickers in the album, but at least they’re strong ones. Curly Carla’s roots in Medusa mythology make her my favorite, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity of “Uncle Sam picks his nose.” How did that one pass muster?

The happy sun from Raisin Bran is a nice inclusion, but I’m more impressed with the Nickelodeon Nerf “Foot” Ball stickers, which probably weren’t intended for album use. (If you were a really devoted sticker collector, everything counted. Even the little Dole labels that came on bananas.)

The “Foot” Ball stickers — footballs that were shaped like feet, because Nickelodeon — are from 1996. Meanwhile, the oldest stickers in this book are from at least 13 years prior. I’ve seen plenty of sticker albums before this, but never one that covered such a long span of time.

Various pages are littered with Power Rangers stickers, which may have been the very first Power Rangers stickers ever created. (They’re from 1994, which potentially meant that they were released just four months after the series debuted.)

Then we have a Pepsi Light puffy sticker, which might be the best thing in the whole album. It’s likely from 1985. This long-discontinued flavor was essentially Diet Pepsi with lemon, and it was just the first of several obsolete Pepsi stickers featured on subsequent pages:

Many of you will recognize Pepsi Free from Back to the Future, but let these stickers be a reminder that Pepsi Free really existed, and wasn’t just some fake brand created for the movies. This type of Pepsi technically still exists today, though under a more direct name: Caffeine Free Pepsi.

The “Take the Pepsi Challenge” sticker refers to an old gimmick that’s apparently still in use today. This involved giving consumers blind taste tests, and praying they picked Pepsi over Coke. Unsurprisingly, commercial recreations of such tests always indicated that they did.

(Weird note: After looking at the Pepsi stickers, my first thought was, “Wow, I gotta find those.” This despite the fact that I own the album, and thus, own them. Possession is 9/10ths, but when it comes to sticker albums, the person who actually put in the stickers is leaning against an unbelievably heavy 1/10th. Spiritually, this album will always be Sue’s, or Michael’s, or whoever the fuck. It will never really be mine.)

There’s nothing too noteworthy about this page, but I did want to highlight just how randomly the stickers were inserted. No rhyme, no reason. The sticker placement seems almost intentionally bewildering, as much great art is. Good art makes a statement; putting Santa next to a prismatic rhino makes 30.

These pages — technically the first and last pages — weren’t meant for stickers. Instead, we’re first given an impressive pitch on why we should maintain a sticker album. Later, we’re given the means to keep track of our collection, and build our personal sticker wishlists. Every kid loves stickers, but these little touches turned hobbyists into fanatics.

Look close at that checklist. You’ll spot many stickers that nobody in their right mind wouldn’t take a bullet for, representing everything from “dead fish” to Country Time Lemonade. If every sticker on that list magically landed in my lap, my next article would be filled with so many non sequiturial emoticons.

Thanks for reading about another old sticker album. More are coming at later dates.

PS: All of the May Funpacks have been shipped, and now that they have, I see that I have enough left for three more subscriptions. If you’re interested, check out the goods. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, and no matter what, this is the absolute last day to sign up for May’s!

I cannot figure out which two fish are alike, and it’s really stressing me out.

Molly

The “wear a bike helmet” sticker being on the “cartoon” page makes me wonder what happened to the original owner.

I kinda love this album, though. Themed pages, including one designated for duplicates and other traders. Genius!

Molly

I think it’s the two big yellow ones.

Tracy Palma

I still have my old Stuck on Stickers set at my parents’ house, as well as a pink, spiralbound sticker book. I should take them home with me next time I’m there.

Tracy Palma

Also, Sandylion stickers were the BOMB. You weren’t cool unless you had some Sandylion stickers. And those puffy stickers with the blue liquid in them.

dd

People did actually always choose pepsi! Apparently when people are asked to choose something in a small dose like this they will always pick the more sugary one. Due to this Coke made thier recipe sweeter, and started to calle it “New Coke”, people freaked and they changed it back to the original recipe. check it> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke

I love this collection because the sticker-er was not cowed by pages that called for certain categories of stickers. They boldly put a snowman sticker in the spot for “My Favorite Food Sticker” even though they CLEARLY had actual food stickers that could have gone there. The miscategorization didn’t bother them. When I got a sticker book with a spot for a certain type of sticker and I was running out of room elsewhere but the new sticker didn’t fit the theme of the open spot, I would be tortured about what to do. I’d usually cross out the page’s designation for the sticker and write an explanation of what I really put there. Then I’d still feel as if I failed somehow.

I am also excited that I now know the smelly stickers I got a few years ago must be Gordy’s. I have a few of the awful ones– tuna, salami, spaghetti, zoo, dead fish, booze– and I treasure them! Now I just wish I could get my hands on the others. Rotten eggs? Pipe tobacco? Tavern? Skunk? Sign me up!

Jason Glor

Parsley Bunch? Astrosniks? Sport-Billy?
Are these cartoons from another dimension? I have never heard of them.

I remember emptying out a family photo album and turning it into a sticker album. My family was thrilled, but I didn’t stop there, I emptied 2 more albums and put clippings of my favorite sunday comics in them.

Deb Wilson

I love a good sticker album, but the anal retentive part of my personality is cringing over the fact that the stickers aren’t organized on the appropriately labeled pages.

Sammy Hain

I’m going to say my favorite part is the snowman as “My Favorite Food Sticker.” It somehow makes more sense if I imagine it’s Mista Snowman

I think “Snooty Sam” got the greenlight because the original is an iconic image, it’s a fairly easy reference for the artist, and it’s funny-gross without being as over-the-top as some of the others. If I remember right, he was one of the ones featured on the packaging, and I suspect it’s because he was easier to pass off as “mild parody” rather than “pure gross-out” — and thus easier to slip by parents before the whole thing completely exploded and started getting backlash.

Sammy Hain

If we were closer to the holidays I wouldn’t dare

I Drank WHAT

I fondly remember getting a sticker and wanting to fill it with EVERY scratch-n-sniff sticker I could get my grubby little mitts on! One of the funnest things I would do is cut out the scratch-n-sniff “samples” they would put in the coupons section of our local Sunday newspaper, by the time I was done I could honestly say I wasn’t able to close the book at one point because of all the stickers! (mostly because of the puffy stickers that I would get from our local Boys Club for Bingo prizes!) Sadly it got lost in a move 🙁 Would have loved to have showed it off now! Although, on a side note, seeing that Skunk listed on the scratch and sniff stickers made me think about when my wife got pregnant for the first time, the only thing that would “cure” her morning sickness was the smell of skunk…NO CLUE why LOL

Deb Wilson

Aww shucks! I know we all love toys here, and we all probably loved that iconic scene in the movie “Big” with the giant floor piano. ABC News just reported that FAO Schwartz is closing their flagship store due to the increasing cost of rent in NYC. I imagine that they have trouble keeping up with online retailers as well. Are we the only ones who still love running up and down the aisles of toy stores anymore? Amazon is all fine and dandy, but it lacks the magic of being in a building that is just wall-to-wall toys.

Deb Wilson

That list of smelly stickers is making me laugh. I wonder what the “gas” sticker smells like? Does it smell like a natural gas leak, or does it smell like flatulence? Inquiring minds want to know.

Humanary Stew

And that actually saved Coca Cola in the long run because people horded the original recipe at the time. Initially, it was a marketing disaster but it made people realize how much they actually liked Coke.

Brew Berry

I’d like to believe that the Life Savers Root Beer sticker was in perfect shape when it was put into the book, but the gingerbread man sticker, not knowing any better, tried tearing it open to get at the candy. And since he’s surrounded by sprinkles and sprawled out in a rosy-cheeked sugar coma, maybe he actually found some. The physics of the cartoon sticker universe still confound all attempts at explanation or understanding, so anything’s possible.

Brew Berry

Wow… A scratch and sniff Dead Fish sticker would be weird enough, but the final listed scent sticker is Booze? This was a pretty subversive collection, especially for the Just Say No To Everything! 80s. I can’t believe they snuck that in there.

stawenn

I don’t think we ever had sticker albums. I think most of my stickers went on Trapper Keepers. But yes, I did collect them. I also have vague memories of most of the brands of Pepsi listed (though not, alas, the Lemon Light Pepsi).

Adam Thayer

I absolutely have to know…. how IS this hippo different from the one on the left? PLEASE TELL ME

SomeoneElse

Hello budget Franklin. I found it interesting that GPK actually had a centaur.

C Wells

I have photos of my family sitting around the kitchen table while my mom blew out her birthday cake candles and opened her presents, and right in between where she and I were sitting, on a counter, is a whole 12-pack of Pepsi Free. I never stopped to think that modern Caffeine-Free Pepsi is the same thing. I need to get one sometime, and see if it sparks any flashbacks. ‘Cause man, did we ever drink a lot of that stuff, while it was around.

The Pepsi Light sticker is definitely one of the gems here. How many people even remember it, without seeing it again like this? It’s also a little freaky how that snowy rooftop sticker is lying *over* a puffy Pepsi sticker, yet shows no visible signs of bending or distortion.

C Wells

I am so dreadfully curious about the ‘booze’ sticker. Both what it smells like, and who thought it was a great idea for a kids’ sticker. As an adult, I’d probably like the scent of unlit pipe tobacco on a sticker, but that’s another WTF inclusion.

Honey Laura Clark

there are a lot of blank spaces where words should be in this article.

I have no idea why but those “puzzle” stickers are setting off my nostalgia something fierce. I’m trying to remember if they came out of like, a highlights magazine or something. I know I had something at least very similar to them.

Good lord, the checklist is amazing. Ah, the famous “booze” scratch & sniff sticker, I’m sure that was always a popular one. And what does the “dentist” sticker smell like? Latex gloves and bone dust? Clearly so much time was devoted to how many different scratch & sniff stickers kids might wanna collect that when they got to cartoons, they could not think of a full 10 that most people have heard of. I am intrigued by the inclusion of Super Chipmunk. As far as the comics are concerned, MARVIN?? Who the fuck has ever liked Marvin?? And then the ideas came fast and furious again when they got to the food sticker section, with such kid favorites as Minute Rice and Shake & Bake.

I am reminded of my own sticker book. where the rule was “anything goes.” Yeah, Dole banana stickers, whatever. I mean, I had my share of Gremlins and Halloween and Topps trading card stickers, but really, anything and everything was fair game.

I’ve never played it. It’s getting lumped in because it’s in those stores that genuinely try to stimulate kids’ imaginations and educate them. I HATE those stores. You will definitely not find a transforming roboshark with chainsaws for fins in a store like that.

Brew Berry

Isn’t it obvious? The hippo on the left can’t be seen because he’s off at school, working hard and building his future like a responsible hippo should. This other hippo found the Booze sticker, and ended up skipping class so he could drunkenly romance an umbrella.

Man, these are always awesome. I think the Pepsi Free ones are my favorite — not just because of Back to the Future, either, but because we used to have that stuff around a lot when I was a kid. “Pepsi Light” is all new to me, though.

And I love the classic Pepsi logo. It always looks like it’s smiling to me, and that makes me smile. Even if only on the inside.

Why did they have to change it?

Oh, and I took the Pepsi Challenge once. Even though I was mainly a Coke drinker, I chose Pepsi. Not to be nice, but they were serving it from cans. Kind of skews the results a bit; I find Pepsi is better from a can, but Coke is better from a bottle. Little things, but they make a difference!

Ruler of Cobrastan

It really tags back to the “What feels like the 80s” theme from the last post, but… Stickers that are just the image of a fully-branded food or drink thing, like the Lifesavers or Pepsi stickers? That’s something that feels so monumentally 80s to me. Things like that seemed to be massively popular in the 80s and surrounding spillover, but just seemed to up and vanish afterwards. It always seemed such a strange thing to have stickers of, and yet, at the same time, so oddly cool…

Root Beer Life Savers? When the hell did that happen? I take it that’s one of the delicacies that disappeared before I was old enough to notice. As a fan of root beer barrels they still sound amazing.

Some of these are familiar. Pretty sure I had that set of Power Rangers stickers, and that gingerbread girl under the root beer savers adorned something in our house…can’t remember what

Out of the whole book I think the raisin bran sun takes the cake. There’s just something special about a solar entity gloating over the fruit he dried to a dead husk. Look at him, he’s so pleased with himself. Maybe he really wants that orange foot.

Never understood how the pepsi challenge could possibly work. If the soda makes your teeth feel like they’ve just been dipped in battery acid, that’s pepsi.

Which is odd cause you can learn some major lessons from robochainshark. For instance; never pet robochainshark.

Zero

This is the first time I’ve heard of Sport-Billy, but it seems it was a real cartoon, originally made in Germany in 1980, and brought over to the US in 82.

I know the Astrosniks better, as my Mom had some of the figures, as well as the rocket playset. They were a line of Smurf-like toys from the 70s, also oddly enough from Germany.

I’ve got nothing on ‘the Parsley Bunch’. Google isn’t any help either. It’s possible they just made it up.

Jason Glor

The German connection is a little odd. I Googled them after posting, just to see if maybe they were something I had seen before, but forgotten the name.
Astrosniks totally remind me of Smurfs and Snorks, but I know I had never seen them before, nor Sport-Billy, even though I was a kid in the 80’s.
I think Parsley Bunch is fake too. Googling for it just results in pictures of parsley in bunches. Parsley Bunch Cartoon isn’t any better. You just get drawings of parsley instead of photos.

Whalley Range

I think I know why the Root Beer Life Savers sticker is ripped in that way. Rather than pulling the little green dental floss, which is sometimes hidden under a layer of paper, I’d often open them by sticking a thumbnail under the Life Saver on the end of the roll, then popping it off the roll, paper and all. The owner of this sticker album was clearly going apeshit to get into a flavor as glorious as Root Beer and opened both ends.

The font usage in that “Drive Smart” sticker is perplexing me. Is the ‘IVE’ supposed to have secondary meaning? Why a different color there?

Kids who rode skateboards were lucky because they found a way to cleverly extend sticker collecting into the years when it was no longer cool — the bottom of the board was a de facto sticker album. Sure, you wouldn’t be caught dead putting a puffy sticker on there (well, maybe a SINGLE one, ironically), but I found ways to put lots of non-skateboard stickers on mine: like Chiquita banana labels and stickers from the Good Sam Club — which no one in my family belonged to, but which kept sending us stickers in the mail featuring their silly, halo-ed spokesman. It was sometimes a hindrance to my skating though: “Oooh, that railing is calling for a railslide…but it might damage my AAA sticker…”

Nina

My sister and I would use huge, spiral-bound photo albums to house our sticker collections, and ours were ORGANIZED. Dole stickers, or colour-your-own stickers from Rose Art weren’t deemed worthy of inclusion among Sandylion, Trend, and Mello Smello.

The Booze one still surprises me, but not half as much as the Banana one does. Apparently after huffing these stickers a little too deeply for a little too long, the designers decided to see just how far they could push it before their legal team started to panic.

rpdavies

I remember my Dad had to explain what Pepsi Free was at we didn’t have it here in the UK.

We did get the Pepsi Challenge, I had a Matchbox NASCAR car with the livery.

The Power Rangers were an odd thing being about the only sci-fi series I didn’t really get into (too busy with homework & exams) but my sister did, & normally it’s not something she would like.

Modok

So are you going to write to them to tell them about your sticker ideas? When I see mailing addresses in old comic ads or products, I like to think the company is still there, even if greatly reduced, and they get really excited when they get a letter every year or two. “S-s-someone remembers us! They liked our stickers!”

I just realized my cubicle is a makeshift sticker album. I have a bunch of stuff stuck to one of the shelves in here – a couple red hearts, some rainbows from a My Little Pony happy meal toy, a puffy Santa, and the best one – a puffy anthropomorphic STRIP OF BACON.
Also, kinda loving the Mercer County Votes sticker in there. “Pride That Shows!” I wonder how much that kid had to beg to get their parent to give them their “I voted!” sticker?

I had that Crest sticker as a kid! The giraffe (can’t think of his name) was their mascot. I remember having a slinky that, when squished to its most basic form, formed an outline of his face. Sandi Lion stickers were a huge part of my childhood. I belonged to their club, so I got stickers in the mail each month along with a shirt. I must have worn that shirt to school more times than anyone cared to see it.

Ahmed Johnson The Reef Eater

That special the Crest giraffe had was not good.

Christian

Those little Pepsi cans are cute as hell! But i would have to say my favorite is the generic hologram animal stickers.

Do I get sticker collector street cred if I recognize those round Christmas stickers accompanying the Lifesavers stickers as stickers from the Current stationery catalog?

As always, whenever I see a sticker album post, I wish I still had mine. I had some amazingly ’80s stickers, like Barbie, GPK, unicorns, and every prismatic sticker in the known universe. One of my favorites was one of the Moodies stickers. It was the purple one that said, “I’m extravagant.” I learned that word in first grade because of stickers.

I am legitimately astonished at the fact that my parents bought me GPK cards. And it’s not like they didn’t see them–they helped me open the packs!

BatmanJesus

The little bear stickers on the Drive Smart page are giving me the weirdest most vertiginous wave of nostalgia. We had a neighbor who worked for a stationery supply company. Each year, he’d have a garage sale of only merchandise he couldn’t move or that was remaindered. It was always packed with sticker books, activity books, fun pencils, erasers . . . all the stuff you drooled over at the local Hallmark store. ALL OF IT. And, it was cheap.

I remember those bear stickers from those sales. Vividly. It could be memory playing up with me, but I am dizzy from it. Wild!

Looks like this one’s prior owner had an “I first name and an “M” last name.

Brandon Howe

Nope. Glad we solved the mystery. Flashbacks… Dinosaur Flashbacks.

Garrison

How were you supposed to trade duplicate stickers that were in the book?

Wingspan1985

I’m surpised that PROPERTY OF MICHAEL GARY SCOTT isn’t plastered on the front the way that thing is put together.
Also, where is the “Unwashed Crotch” scent in the Smelly Stickers section?
Henry Gordy, you Sir, have lost my respect.

Joseph Valencia

I know this thread is over a year old and dead, but I found something interesting pertaining to the Parsley Bunch. Namely, this listing from a site called eCrater: